A good team
by starknner
Summary: Bruce finally has his hopes up, but not for long.


The world had been in complete peace for several months now, and Fury hadn't assembled the team in quite some time, which meant everyone had time to focus on their jobs and projects. Or honey moons, as it was the case for Natasha and Clint. Months long honey moons. Seriously, no one even knew where they were. Well, Fury probably did.

Steve was doing volunteer work in the army and Thor was off in Asgard being, well, the king.

Bruce and Tony had been working together in the labs at the Stark tower, as they always did when they were off-duty as Avengers. They'd become pretty close over time, and everyone agreed they had been doing wonders for each other. Tony was getting used to not working alone, and Bruce seemed to get calmer around Tony. More and more as time went by, actually.

One afternoon, after they had given their all for the day, Tony poured each of them a glass of not excessively expensive scotch as they sat on a couch placed in front of a full-wall window in one of the living rooms in the tower.

"Woah, today was exhausting. What do you say we take a day off tomorrow?" Tony suggested as he sat next to Bruce.

"Sure, I definitely need a rest."

"Cool."

It was quiet for a while, as they took some sips of their drinks.

"You know, Banner, this has been great. We make a good team."

Bruce smiled and nodded.

"Yeah... yeah we do."

"And I uh, I actually gotta thank you."

Bruce sent him a confused look as if to say 'What for?'

"Having you around has been really good for me. Even Coulson said I'm a better fit as uh, a part of a team. I mean, Coulson. That's gotta be worth something."

Bruce chuckled.

"But seriously," Tony said grabbing Banner's hand and sending an unexpected chill down his spine, "thank you."

"No problem... you've uh... you've been pretty good to me, too. You calm me down. And uh... I need that. For... obvious reasons." Tony smiled in response.

They looked down at their hands, which were still intertwined, and pulled them away in a blink. Bruce ran it through his hair and Tony got up really fast and spoke.

"Uh so, I should go to sleep. See you tomorrow." as he started walking away towards the door he turned on his heels "oh, actually, see you in two days, right? Because of the... day off thing."

"Oh, right, right. Uh, see you then."

"Yeah... night!"

"Night."

Tony left to his room, and after a short period of reflection over what had just happened - and a couple more glasses of scotch -, Bruce left to his borrowed room. He had been spending so much time at the Stark tower that Tony had thought it would be best if he spent the night there too, so he wouldn't have to take so long to get there every day.

The following morning Bruce woke up with a slight headache and still very, very tired, and very confused as well.

It's not that he didn't already know he liked Tony, he was perfectly aware of it. But the night before had something different. It was the first time Bruce thought that maybe, just maybe, Tony felt the same. Or something close to it. At least he hoped he did.

They had been working together and seeing each other every day for nearly a year, and not even two months in, Bruce was already crushing on him. He thought it would go away, and that it was just because they were spending a lot of time together, but it only grew stronger with time. He was fine with all of it, but he never thought anything could really happen. But now he was starting to have a little faith that it would.

In Tony's room things were going fairly similar, minus the headache.

He decided he had to be the one to do something about their... situation, but he couldn't bring himself to get out of the room to talk to him just now, so he started to think and plan what he was going to say.

A number of elaborate inside speeches later, he thought screw it, he'd think of something on the spot.

First, of course, he had to find Bruce.

A number of rooms and floors later he remembered the night before he had said they wouldn't see each other for that day. This, now he thought, hadn't made much sense. They were living in the same place after all.

After a useless search for a number of places it made no sense for Banner to be, Tony remembered to look in the living room they'd been in the previous night. It was Bruce's favorite, he said it was relaxing to look around and only see sky through the windows.

And there he was. Oddly enough though, the windows were shut and the only light in the room was the electrical one.

The door was open, but Tony knocked as he walked in so Bruce would know he was there, since he was facing the other way. As he heard the knocks and his name, he turned around.

"Oh, hey Tony. Didn't see you come in."

"Yeah, I noticed." He took a few more steps in and pointed around "why are all the windows shut? I thought you liked the view."

"Usually, yes, but today... I don't know. Don't mind it." he looked a bit stressed and Tony thought about leaving this for some other time, but he shook the thought.

"Are you alright? You look a bit... off."

"Yeah... yeah I'm okay. I think... don't worry though, nothing big. Did you uh, need anything?"

Tony walked up closer to him.

"Yeah, actually. I wanted to talk to you about something." He stopped.

"Well, go ahead."

"I'm not sure how to start... uh..."

Fuck it, Tony thought. Different approach.

"Jarvis, dim the lights."

The room darkened and Tony took one step closer to Bruce.

"If you don't want me to do what I'm going to do next, just push me away."

"How am I supposed to know wha-"

Banner's sentence was cut short by Tony's lips pressing on his, not without a sharp breath of surprise from Bruce in reaction to the move.

Now, Banner knew his friend was known for sleeping around, but he hadn't done that in a long, long time. But still, due to his rough teenage induced self-esteem issues, Bruce's hopes turned into insecurities as soon as Tony actually did something about it, which was, at the very least, weird.

If Tony was just messing around, it would hurt him. But he didn't pull away. He was going to enjoy every bit of... whatever this was.

But, eventually, Tony pulled apart and looked at Bruce, surprised to see an almost concerned look on his face.

"Tony... what was..."

"Sorry, I... I had to."

"But..."

Bruce stopped himself. Should he just ask 'why'? Or what that come off as an 'I didn't want you to do that' to Tony?

"What?"

"Wh-why... why did you do that?"

Tony gave him a close to apologetic look.

"Shouldn't I have?"

"No, that's not it. I uh..."

Bruce sighed and ran his hands through his hair, then turned serious and looked at Tony, whose eyes were shimmering in the weak light that was left in the room. They looked even brighter than usual. Beautiful... But Bruce was getting distracted. He sat down, signaled Tony to do the same and inhaled deeply.

"Look, Tony... I don't ask this a lot, but I need you to be completely serious right now. I don't know why you did what you just did, but I want you to know, and I'm going to say this in fear of ruining what is, dead honest, the best friendship I've ever had," Tony smiled a bit at this, before getting serious again at what Bruce said next "I really, really like you. And if you're just going to play around, you're gonna mess me up bad."

There was a little silence while Bruce watched Tony's reaction to what he had just said. He was just staring at the floor, and he looked so serious, which he never did when he wasn't working. After a few seconds, that felt pretty long to Banner, he looked up at him.

"I know I have a... a bit of a reputation. But... I don't do that to friends, Bruce. And I most definitely could never do it to you. No, you're way too important to lose just like that..." Bruce gave him a shy smile. "The amount of trust you put in me is entirely up to you, but... just so you know, I'd like it to be as close to 100% as possible." He paused. "You know, when I suggested you worked here with me, everyone was uh, concerned that it could be, uhm..."

"Dangerous... I get it." Bruce interrupted.

"Well, yes." Tony grabbed Bruce's hand and squeezed it softly for the last part. "But I didn't care. I took that chance. I chose to trust things about you that you don't even trust yourself. Just for the chance of, as childish as that may be, having an excuse to have you around."

Bruce sank deeper in the couch they'd been sitting on.

Stark watched him throw his head back and lay it on the back of the couch, looking up at the ceiling.

"Bruce... I was kind of uh... expecting a reply..."

Bruce looked at Tony and smiled, still not saying a word.

"Bruce, seriously, you're killing me here. Just say something."

Bruce gave a small chuckle and leaned in, kissing Tony and putting his hand on his back to pull him closer. It only lasted a few seconds, but after that they were both smiling, and Tony was smiling in a way Bruce hadn't seen happening in a long, long time.

"Ok, no need for words, that works too."

Bruce's smile was cut by a wince of pain. Tony furrowed his eyebrows.

"What's wrong?"

"My head... it's been hurting all morning. I think I drank too much last night."

Tony looked confused.

"It was just a glass..."

"While you were in the room, yes. But after you left, well..."

Tony smiled.

"My mind was a mess too, don't worry."

"Well, at least you did something about it..."

"I just... thought it was worth giving it a try. Giving us a try."

"Good call."

The rest of their day-off was spent at a number of different places. They took a walk going through each of their favorite spots in town; parks, streets, restaurants, anything they could think of. And they just talked.

But it was a different kind of talk than usual. Before, it was all work (any kind) and any time a more personal subject came up, they both kind of went around it. They weren't really sure why, maybe they were just scared that if they said too much about themselves, it would send the other one running away from them. Silly thought, of course, they were friends.

And pointless thought too, since despite their efforts to remain closed about those aspects of their lives, they always gave it away somehow. As a reference to something, as a joke. I guess they just weren't obvious and upfront about it, it had to be subtle.

But that day, they just talked. And talked, and talked and talked. And it seemed as though they weren't really learning anything completely new about each other, and that realization surprised them.

They had dinner at home, after Tony's surprisingly well-succeeded efforts to cook.

It was a quiet dinner; they were done with words for the day. After they finished, Tony simply stole a kiss from Bruce when he was turning around after loading the dishes, said 'good night' and went to his room without another word, but with a big grin. Kind of like the one he left on Bruce's happily surprised face.

The following day was a strange one. They each followed their usual routine: get up, shower, have breakfast and meet at the lab. But once they saw each other, it was just weird. They weren't used to all the grinning and all the touching. It was a good kind of weird, but it would take them both some time to adjust to this new vibe between them, at work and everywhere. The thing is they wouldn't have any time to start getting used to it for a while.

Halfway through the day, Tony got two phone calls, but only told Bruce about one of them.

"It was Fury, apparently the team is all gonna be in town tomorrow, by pure coincidence. Well, except for Thor."

"So, Steve and Natasha and Clint. But why?"

"I don't know. I don't think there's a reason I think Nick was just letting me know."

"Strange..."

"Very."

For the rest of the work day, Bruce was his usual self while Tony seemed to be a little distant, to say the least. Banner asked about it several times, but he insisted he was fine, and by sunset he just quickly kissed Bruce with an 'I'm really tired today so I'm just gonna go straight to bed. See you tomorrow."

Bruce didn't have time to word nothing other than a confused 'good night'.

With Steve, Clint and Natasha back in the city, Tony called up everyone to go down to the Tower so he could say something to the team. Bruce asked what it was about beforehand, to no avail.

Once they were all gathered around a table at one of the many meeting rooms, he just cut right to the chase.

"So, they're renewing the Stark facilities over in Japan, so they asked me to go there in a couple of weeks to watch over it. It'll probably take around six months."

"Wait, six months?" Clint looked wide-eyed at Tony. Nick was gonna be pissed.

"And you're going?" Natasha asked.

"Yeah. Only in a couple of weeks though. Then just six months and I'll be back."

All of a sudden Bruce got up and walked out the door without a word.

"Is he ok?" Steve looked sincerely worried.

Tony sighed.

"Uh, I'm gonna go... check on him. Just to make sure he's alright."

And just with that he ran off the room to catch up with Bruce. He found him in the living room they'd been in just two days before.

"Bruce?"

"Get out of here."

"Are you mad at me?"

Banner looked at him like he had just spoken in an unknown language.

"Is this your idea of 'giving it a try'?! Kissing me and two days later saying you're leaving for six months?!"

"What, did you think I was gonna stay?"

"Was it really so farfetched to think that was an option?"

"Well..."

"Never mind, I don't wanna hear anything else from you."

With those words he left Tony alone and went up to his room.

The next day, no one saw him. Every time someone knocked on the door he'd say he was working on something and that he didn't want to be disturbed.

The day after that, while Bruce was having breakfast, Tony walked in the kitchen. Bruce did nothing other than glance at him.

"Can we talk?"

"That depends. Have you changed your mind?" Banner replied without taking his eyes off of his coffee mug.

"No, but-"

"Then no, we can't."

Bruce got up and walked past Tony and out of the kitchen. They didn't see each other again for another couple of days.

Eventually, Bruce decided that avoiding Tony wasn't a good enough reason to go down to the lab so rarely, so he just gave up and spent the day there, knowing he could show up any time, which he eventually did. Without even as much as 'hello' he pressed the subject again.

"I have to go, Bruce."

"Sure you do."

"Seriously."

"Yeah, I get it."

"Could you at least look at me while we're talking?"

Bruce didn't move.

"I don't really want to, no."

"Bruce, please. This is important. You're important."

"If I'm so important, then why are you leaving?" he said, finally looking up at Tony, with a look that was both sad and angry.

"It's work, Bruce, I can't just pass it on to someone else. Ok I could, but it wouldn't be the same thing."

Bruce shook his head and got up.

"You know what? You haven't changed a damned thing. Everyone thinks you're such a good 'team player' now, but it's still always about you first. You're still the same old narcissistic bastard you've always been."

"Woah, that... that actually hurt."

"Yeah? Guess what else hurt, jackass."

"You're being unfair."

"No. No I'm not. I'm getting out of here before I break you."

Tony looked at him, almost shocked.

"Wait, what? You wouldn't actually do that, would you?"

"It's not like I can control it, Tony!" he lowered his voice for what he was gonna say next, since it wasn't exactly the type of thing he wanted to shout, "You already broke me, so..."

Just that hit Tony like a ton of bricks. For a second, he considered that maybe Bruce did have a reason to be acting like that. But it was just for a second, before he went back to his self-centered mindset, and Bruce was already out the door.

Tony found out through Steve that he had run off to the closest ghost town and smashed down a bunch of buildings. Rogers had told him Bruce had seemed very down when he talked to him, and quickly changed subjects when Tony's name was brought up. The Captain asked if everything was ok between the two of them, to which Stark responded with a quick nod and a faint 'yeah'.

Over the next week, they barely saw each other. And the few times they did, Bruce didn't even look at Tony. He even tried talking to him a couple of times, but Banner always ran past him.

A few days went by, and it was time for Stark to start packing.

As he packed and thought over and over about the fact that he would be away for six months, he thought more and more about Bruce. Then he really started thinking about how quickly he'd made the decision to just go and leave him behind. And suddenly, it hit Tony how stupid he was being. Six months away from him? No, absolutely not. What was he even thinking? Scratch that, was he even thinking at all? He stared into nothing completely baffled by his own actions. Had that really just happened? Tony had done plenty of stupid things in his life, but he was pretty sure this one was the worst. He didn't really have to go to Japan. The call was of the informative nature, no one had asked him anything. So why had he decided to go again? Oh, right, he was scared. Childish idiot. He couldn't go, he just couldn't. At this point, he'd rather spend that time without Bruce even wanting to talk to him, than not even seeing him at all. No matter how much he tried to convince himself of the opposite. He knew this was just his old near aversion to feelings. But it was worth getting over, for Bruce.

He unpacked everything he had ready to go and went to find him. He was glad to see him alone at the lab, looking through some reports from their projects. He didn't see Tony coming in, and only looked up when he heard his voice, frowning right away, but he didn't have time to send him out of there, because Tony spoke first.

"I'm sorry. I've been acting ridiculous, and I must be way dumber than I thought, because somehow I only realized this now."

Banner, who was bending over the table going through all the sheets scattered around on top of it, sat up straight and crossed his arms, signaling Tony to go on.

"It was stupid just to think that I could ever be able to stay that far from you for so long. And it was even more stupid that I had to actually start packing to acknowledge that. I was trying to avoid that realization because I'm still just a messed up guy who's afraid of feelings. I know, it's ridiculous. And I know it's stupid, but... I know that you're the person who's gonna change that about me."

As he talked, he slowly walked towards the desk Bruce was sitting in front of, until he sat on the chair next to him.

"When you said that I... broke you, it really hit me. Well, not right away, but it did. How much it bothered me that I'd hurt you. I never meant to, trust me. I was just being irrational and I'm sorry about that. And everything else, I'm truly sorry."

For a moment, they were both silent, as Tony waited for Bruce to say something, if he were to say anything at all.

"So, you're staying?"

"Yes, of course."

"Because of me?"

"Yes."

"That's sweet."

"Thank you."

Tony smiled (and blushed a little) as he said that and Bruce couldn't help but smile back.

"I forgive you."

"You do? Really?"

"Really. I knew something was off that day you got the call, and yes, I got really, really mad when you said you were leaving but I know how messed up you are, no matter how much you try to hide it. That's why I was so afraid you didn't really want anything serious with me, and then when you announced that I was so sure I was right, and I guess that's what hurt the most. But if you're ready to acknowledge your problems and face the truth, I want to be there to help, and I'm not gonna be able to do that if I stay mad, as simple as that. It's gonna take a while for me to be completely okay about all this, though."

"Of course, of course. I'll take what I can get."

"Oh and Tony..."

"What?"

"All those things I said and called you the other day? That was mean, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I kind of... needed to hear it."

"Still, I hurt you, and I shouldn't have. Sorry."

"I'm good, seriously. I don't want you to feel bad for anything you said after I was a complete idiot, it doesn't matter, I deserved it."

"No you di-"

"Bruce." he said grabbing his hand "I did. Don't fight me on this."

"Okay, okay..."

"Thank you."

Bruce smiled and Tony hugged him, after a moment of hesitation. After a couple of seconds they pulled apart.

"Bruce?"

"Yeah?"

Tony took a deep breath and then looked at him.

"I love you."

"Wow, really? Do you really mean that, or do you just want me to not be mad at all anymore?"

"Bruce, come on, you know that wasn't easy for me."

"I know, I was just kidding. Just to make you suffer a little bit."

Tony frowned.

"Mean."

Bruce chuckled.

"And uh, you don't really deserve hearing this from me now but... I love you too."

Tony's face lit up and in half a second his lips were on Bruce's. They both smiled at each other and he pulled Bruce closer to him.

"We make a good team, Banner."

"Yes we do, Stark. Yes we do."


End file.
